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lopy 1 



HOW ENGLAND 

LOOKS 
TO GERMANY 



By Gerhard von §chulze-Gaevernitz 

Professor of Political Economy, University of Freiburg, and Member of the Reichstag 



Price, Ten Cents 



New York: 

The Laureate Press 

1600 Broadway 



How England 
Looks to Germany 






Reprinted from The Evening Mail, New York 

Copyright, 1915, by S. S. McClure 



By transfer 

Department of State 

1919. 



HOW ENGLAND 

LOOKS 

TO GERMANY 



D 



v UTCH Ships Bringing in an 
English Frigate," is the title 
of a striking picture which 
adorns the Mariz-Haus in The Hague, 
the historic residence of the Orange 
family. This picture, like all other 
Dutch seascapes of that period, re- 
minds one of the time when Great 
Britain's naval supremacy had not 
yet been established and accepted be- 
yond challenge. 

In those days an Admiral Tromp 
swept through the Channel with the 
symbolic broom at his masthead. A 
menacing Ruyter ventured to the 
mouth of the Thames. A Hugo Gro- 
tius boldly demanded the "freedom 
of the seas," the equality of all on the 
sea, the highway of nations. That 
was the noonday of civilization! In 
the background was the seventy 
years' struggle for freedom— a strug- 
gle between a hopeless minority and a 
world-embracing despotism. 

Religious zeal and tolerance, patri- 
otic devotion to the fatherland, com- 
bined with the full development of 
individual initiative and personality, 
Orange heroism, commercial daring 
and civil liberty had won that tri- 
umph which was glorified by the 
highest achievements of science and 
art. Emerging victorious through 
darkness and distress, Rembradnt's 
most German soul flamed up toward 
heaven. 

About 1650 the world's trade was 
in Holland's hands. The Dutch com- 
mercial fleet then comprised more 
than half the tonnage of Europe. 
England and the rest of the world 
turned imitative eyes toward the 
country which, "having no forests, 
yet builds the ships of the whole 
earth." The thought of the Great 
Elector, as well as that of Frederick 
William I. of Prussia, was deeply 
rooted in the traditions of the Nether- 
lands 

England Claimed the Seas. 

But the world position of the Neth- 



erlands was shattered by the hard 
facts of war. England insisted upon 
the punishment of Grotius for daring 
to demand free seas, and, through its 
crown lawyer, asserted ownership of 
the seas as far as the American and 
German coasts as British property. 
This claim she enunciated in the un- 
mistakable language of warships. 

Up to this time the Dutch had had 
no navy, and armed some of her mer- 
chant ships to meet emergencies. But 
wool-exporting England built the first 
specialized men-of-war. Those ships 
were superior to those of their foe 
especially in artillery. With this new 
and superior weapon England im- 
posed upon the Dutch the Navigation 
Act which ruined Holland's trade as 
international middleman. 

As a token of their humiliation, Dutch 
ships were obliged to dip their colors 
to the English flag. It was at this 
time that Cromwell gave utterance 
to the doctrine: "Englnd cannot tol- 
erate upon the ocean any flag but its 
own withoui consent." 

That tenet, which, like the entire 
Cromwellian policy, was adopted by 
successive monarchs and statesmen, 
has dominated the entire British eco- 
nomic policy, whether expressed or 
implied, down to this day. In this 
connection I need but to cite Adam 
smith's attitude toward the Naviga- 
tion Acts. 

The Dutch Sea Drama. 

The downfall of the Netherlands 
was hastened by the fact that the 
country was practically a stretch of 
coast and lacked the protection of a 
strong German hinterland. Germany 
remained ,an idle witness of the 
Dutch drama, although the Prince of 
Orange at the Diet of Worms had 
called out in warning: "Your battle is 
being fought, for the struggle in prog- 
ress at the mouth of the Rhine is for 
the mastery of the seas." 

Later on, the English successfully 
drove France, then the next strong- 
est continental power, into war with 



the Netherlands until in the eigh- 
teenth century the French, once the 
dreaded enemies of England, had 
become her allies "on sufferance" 
and had drifted into a state of im- 
potent inactivity. With the Nether- 
lands eliminated, England and 
France remained the "sea powers" 
of the world. Frederick the Great 
wittily spoke of "a British man-of- 
war with a Dutch sloop in tow" as 
representing the sea power of his 
time. 

England Grasps the Trident. 

Ever since those days Great 
Britain has maintained a firm hold 
upon Neptune's trident, which is the 
scepter of world-domain. 
"She (England) wants to close free 

Amphitrite's kingdom 
As one might close his own home-gate." 

Thus Schiller, with his keen in- 
sight, characterized the ultimate 
cause of all world wars in his age as 
well as our own. The English wars 
of that time were directed against 



France as the most dangerous rival 
for the dominion of the seas and of 
the world. If one may speak of 
hereditary enmity in the changing 
course of European politics, such an 
enmity grew up in the 200 years' 
feud between France and England. 

Arthur Girault, professor of his- 
tory at the University of Poitiers and 
member of the Colonial International 
Institute, in his work on "Principles 
of Colonization" ("Principes de Col- 
onisation," Paris, 1904) deals with 
the period of French history from 
1688 to 1815. During that interval 
not less than seven fierce and long 
wars were fought between France 
and England. "All those wars," says 
Girault, "were trade wars for Eng- 
land, the purpose of which was to 
destroy the naval and colonial power 
of France. English activity brought 
about all the alliances which were 
then concluded against us in Europe. 
And while our troops were fighting 
on the continent, she destroyed our 
navy and seized our colonies." 



England's Conquest of France, 

the Then Ruling Power 



In the beginning of her struggle 
with England, France was superior 
to her rival in population and rev- 
enue. In colonial enterprises, too, she 
led. She had isolated the British 
settlements on the east coast of 
North America from the "hinter- 
land." Canada, the Mississippi Val- 
ley, Louisiana and the prosperous 
West Indies marked the uninter- 
rupted continuity of Greater France 
in America. In India, too, France 
had taken the initiative before Eng- 
land. Dupleix discovered the secret 
of conquering India by means of In- 
dian soldiers, Indian taxpayers and 
a handful of European military lead- 
ers. The English simply carried out 
the idea of Dupleix; a fact which 
Seeley in his "Expansion of Eng- 
land" expressly acknowledges. 

Even during the American war of 
independence the brilliant Suffren 
ruled the Indian ocean for France — 
that sea which since that time has 
been looked upon as the exclusive 
property of England until the cruise 
of the Emden in our own day. This 
triumph she achieved by concentrat- 
ing all her strength upon her navy 
and by inducing other nations to 
fight out her wars on land. At one 
time she played off the French 
against the Dutch, then the Germans 
against the French, and to-day the 
French against the Germans. 

It was a favorite saying of Will- 
iam Pitt's that the English conquest 
of America was accomplished by the 



attacks of Frederick the Great upon 
France. During the fury of the 
French revolution what remained of 
the French navy was systematically 
and wantonly annihilated by the de- 
struction of all naval traditions. 

Carnot made use of the revolu- 
tionary enthusiasm and the "sover- 
eign power of the state" to recon- 
struct the army. But it is not easy 
to improvise a new navy, although the 
flags of the French revolutionary ar- 
mies bore the proud inscription: 
"Freedom of the Seas! Equal Rights 
to All Nations!" ("Liberte des mers! 
Egalite des droits de toutes les na- 
tions!") 

Napoleon Bursts on the Scene. 

While France was in that position, 
a genius of matchless glory arose on 
her political sky. Napoleon was the 
last outburst of Latin greatness. His 
policy, at the first glance, appears 
fanciful and fragmentary. But there 
is a unity underlying it which can 
only be explained by the one leading 
idea which was uppermost in Napo- 
leon's mind: "Freedom of the seas; 
fight against England's trade su- 
premacy in the world." 

The great Corsican aimed to de- 
grade Albion to a "second isle of 
Oloron." The Egyptian campaign 
and the conquest of the European 
continent were both directed against 
England. Europe was too small for 
Napoleon; he said contemptuously: 
"Cette vielle Europe m'ennuie." 

Napoleon's belief that he could de- 



feat England in Germany is easily 
understood if one bears in mind the 
importance of German trade to Eng- 
land. Since the conquest of Holland 
by France, Hamburg had become the 
heir of Amsterdam's trade and ship- 
ping. About 1800, the North German 
market was England's most impor- 
tant commercial asset. After his 
victory at Jena Napoleon, by the de- 
crees of Berlin, barred English goods 
from German coasts. 

At the beginning of his war with 
Russia, Napoleon, looking a hundred 
years ahead, wrote: "It all resembles 
a scene in a comedy, and the English 
are the scene shifters of the whole 
show." The thought of reaching In- 
dia by an overland route occupied 
Napoleon's mind all his life. By push- 
ing into India, the great Corsican 
hoped, even though deprived of a 
navy, to win the "freedom of the 
seas." 

What Waterloo Really Meant. 

The tremendous waste of strength 
in the Napoleonic wars reduced the 
world position of the ancient regime 
of France. At Waterloo the question 
of the dominion of the seas was 
finally decided in favor of England. 

Furthermore, during her original 
struggle with France, England had 
reached out and made herself the eco- 
nomic center of the world. She had 



become the industrial state, the freight 
carrier, the broker and banker of the 
world. For Karl Marx, British capi- 
talism was a synonym of capitalism, 
and capitalism as he described it had 
many British traits. 

In the war with France the British 
acquired a tremendous colonial em- 
pire. While all the continent was 
paralyzed by the Napoleonic wars, 
they temporarily established a mon- 
opoly of all overseas markets. All 
non-British commercial fleets were 
destroyed. During that struggle 
England is said to have incorporated 
4,000 European ships in her commer- 
cial fleet. 

After seven years of warfare, on the 
18th of February, 1801, Pitt was en- 
abled to say in Parliament: "We have 
succeeded in developing our foreign 
and domestic trade to a higher point 
than it has ever before attained, and 
we can look upon the present as the 
proudest year which has ever been 
granted to our land." England was 
then the only rich country; in the 
revolutionary and Napoleonic wars 
she more than once held her conti- 
nental allies together by subsidies 
and loans. 

It is important to call to mind those 
facts, for the memory of the Napo- 
leonic period was admittedly a con- 
sideration in the minds of British 
statesmen when they declared war 
upon Germany. 



The Spiritual and Moral Bases 

of England's Great World Empire 



It is no less important to understand 
the spiritual and moral bases of Brit- 
ish world dominion, for the Briton 
first excelled his continental rivals in 
intellectual and moral development, 
then overcame them economically by 
initiating the factory system, and 
finally established his political su- 
premacy over them. All British great- 
ness was molded in the Puritan age. 
The outlines of that old and rigid 
type have been worn down to-day, 
but it still marks the ideal type of 
Anglo-Saxon. In one phase it em- 
bodies everything that an English- 
man implies by the word "liberty" — 
that is to say, the intellectual, eco- 
nomic and political emancipation of 
the individual from social restraint, 
self-control, responsibility to one's 
own conscience, self-help based and 
systematically developed upon a 
strong physique. 

The other side of the picture shows 
severe self-restraint, dutiful service 
to one's profession or occupation, the 
limitation of sexual relations to the 
married state and a demand to the 
right to rule as a "chosen people." 
The "economic man" of Adam Smith 
is a thoroughbred Briton who earns 
for the sake of earning and not to en- 



joy and spend. Sexual self-control is 
one of the bases upon which British 
world-dominion has been built up. 
Service done to his own nation ap- 
pears to an Englishman as a service 
done to humanity, which can be fur- 
thered in no way so well as by ap- 
plying the British red to some new 
section of the world's map. 

This faith, unshaken by any sym- 
pathetic understanding for foreigners 
("natives," whether they be Hindoos 
or Germans) is a source of national 
strength of the first order. It is dan- 
gerous to underrate one's foe. The 
typical Anglo-Saxon is as hard as 
steel, tenacious of purpose, cold as a 
dog's nose. He is thoroughly inartis- 
tic, always ready to subject the gay 
and beautiful world to the hard test of 
arithmetic. 

Newton's "mechanism of nature," 
which Goethe hated so thoroughly; 
the "economic mechanism" of Ri- 
cardo, another Englishman, which 
Marx railed against so passionately, 
are products of the calculative British 
mind. 

The New Civilization. 

Only that nation would be able to 
administer a political check to Great 



Britain which has stored up within 
itself the valuable elements in the 
British mind and spirit and can offer 
at the same time a stronger and rich- 
er ideal of culture, the nation that 
has developed its concept of civiliza- 
tion to new and more nearly eternal 
values. The French failed to develop 
these qualities. 

It is necessary to keep in mind that 
the spiritual supremacy of English 
thought preceded English economic 
and political and world-dominion un- 
til Immanuel Kant. For two hundred- 
years the high point of European 
thought lay in Great Britain. The 
vigorous flow of Puritanism became 
stagnant in the "enlightenment" of 
France; its religious significance was 
lost. 

Divine revelation was displaced by 
sober empiric religion, to which 
nothing was real that could not be 
touched. Pleasure displaced duty; 
nothing was of value that could not 
be tasted with pleasure. Referring 
to Bentham's "Mill of Happiness," 
Nietzsche said: "Man does not strive 
for happiness; but an Englishman 
certainly does." 

The French became heirs of British 
enlightenment, as Voltaire observed 
and Macaulay repeated; France be- 
came the "interpreter of England's 
thought to mankind." In French 
hands enlightenment became more 
attractive, but also more radical. As 
a French conception, the "rights of 
man," originally a British concep- 
tion, conquered the world and devel- 
oped into the dynamite that destroyed 
outlived social forms. 

Napoleon Sacrificed Freedom. 

But with the leverage on an irre- 
ligious enlightenment, even Napo- 
leon's genius could not lift British 
virility from the saddle. Deaf to the 
"chatter of ideals," he appealed to 
the baser motives in men — vanity, the 
love of titles, instincts of luxury. 
Napoleon sacrificed freedom to equal- 
ity; he throttled parliamentary repre- 
sentation of the people. He regarded 
religion as a state-sanctioned super- 
stition which prevented rich people 
from being murdered by the poor. 

The spiritual ground upon which he 
stood was too soft to enable him to 
lift the British mass. The most bril- 
liant Caesarism was wrecked on the 
hard rock of Anglo-Saxon strength. 

After Napoleon's fall the colossus 
of British world dominion rose to its 
last and greatest height. Having 
control of the seas, England domi- 
nated colonial enterprises, in which 
other nations could participate only 
so far as she was willing. In most 
oversea regions the Briton typified all 
Europe. Great Britain's world do- 
minion recalled the long-vanished 
greatness of ancient Rome. 

England Adopts Free Trade. 

In 1846, when England took up free 
trade, the earth was British economic 



territory. England proudly called 
herself the "workshop of the world." 
She took it for granted that all other 
nations would also adopt free trade, 
and would continue to exchange their 
raw materials and foodstuffs for Eng- 
lish manufactured goods. For the 
greatness of England as she was then 
the earth was just big enough. 

The Manchester school of phil- 
osophy can be understood only by 
those who have grasped the idea that 
free trade was the Manchester men's 
method of British world dominion, 
namely, domination of the world 
through commercial travelers and 
price lists. At that time a Briton 
cojld afford to be cosmopolitan be- 
cause to him British interests were 
identia* with the best interests of 
mankind England, in his opinion, 
managed the world best as a trustee 
of all other nations, and for all peo- 
ples on the same basis — so long as 
they were content to get along with- 
out factories or shipping! 

Control of the Seas in England's 
Hands. 

Similarly in the field of interna- 
tional law. The "freedom of the 
seas," which has been formally in- 
corporated in the law of the nations, 
is valid for England only if it is 
based upon a tacit acceptance of 
British naval supremacy. Even Man- 
chester men and laissez-faire politi- 
cians have helped to build up the 
British navy. Mr. Stead, the pacifist, 
had been agitating m Germany in the 
cause of peace. When he returned 
to England from his peace propa- 
ganda ir Germany he advocated the 
construction of two British men-of- 
war for each German keel. 

This apostle of universal peace was, 
at tlu same time, an apostle of Brit- 
ish na\al supremacy. To the samj 
end England blocked the develop- 
ment of the right of private property 
on t". sea, and upheld the right to 
capture, in order to kill the trade 
of her enemies. In this direction she 
has gone still further in the present 
conflict by extending the scope of 
the meaning of contraband to an ex- 
tent which has paralyzed the com- 
merce even of neutrals. 

In the London Declaration of 1909 
the rules of international maritime 
law as established by custom was 
formulated. Under that declaration 
ore, raw cotton, agricultural and min- 
ing machinery were included in the 
"free list," that is, among the articles 
which, under all circumstances, could 
be dealt in freely with neutral coun- 
tries. Grain is defined as "relative 
contraband," which is not subject to 
seizure if it is discharged at neutral 
ports and then conveyed to the en- 
emy's territory. At present, however, 
England is seizing both conditional 
contraband and non-contraband as 
she pleases. British inspectors su- 
pervise Dutch trade in Holland. Eng- 



land forbids neutral countries to ex- 
port to Germany under the threat of 
cutting off all supplies. 

On account of the growing interde- 
pendence of nations British naval 
dominion now weighs on mankind far 
more heavily than a hundred years 
ago. In 1880 only the coast lines of 
oversea continents were opened up. 
Islands like the West Indies were the 
basis of the then existing colonial 
system. Oversea trade was made up 
of the more valuable articles of lux- 
ury, such as tobacco, coffee, sugar 
and spices, which could be dispensed 
with. In case of need every European 
country could become a self-sustained 
state without serious inconvenience. 

Division of Labor and Interdepend- 
ence of Nations. 

Since then the oversea countries 
have been thoroughly settled and 
opened up. A division of functions 
has taken place among the nations, 
and their economic life has become 
thoroughly interwoven by the vast in- 
crease in the volume of international 
trade. 

The commerce of the world now 
consists, not of the luxuries for the 
rich, but of the necessities of life for 
the masses. To-day the weal and 
woe of every nation, as of every in- 
dividual, depends to a large extent on 
the international trade, which is 
mostly ocean-borne. Hence mankind 
has been delivered to the good will 
or ill will of Great Britain, the mis- 
tress of the seas. 

By cutting off oversea communica- 
tions, including the cables, Britain 
can bring the delicate machinery of 
the world's industry to a complete 
stop. By closing the seaways to in- 
dustrial Europe England condemns 
the million-headed armies of work- 
men to unemployment and cracks her 
whip of hunger in the huts of the 
poor. 

European agriculture is also depend- 
ent upon exportation of farming prod- 
ucts and the importation of necessary 
supplies. By cutting cottonseed meal 
and fodder, England stops the supply 
of milk in cities and treads upon the 
bodies of infants. 

In oversea countries which export 
raw material the producer is on prin- 
ciple the credit-taker, and in the end 
pays off his interest with goods. An 
epidemic of bankruptcies threatens 
these new countries. The storm of a 
commercial crisis sweeps over South 
Amprica and the economic existence 
of thousands of debtors and creditors 
alike has been ruined. The exporta- 
tion of goods, the investment of new 
capital stops when British political in- 
terest demands that the world's in- 
dustrial machinery be stopped, and yet 
British political interests have noth- 
ing in common with South America. 

Blockade Affects U. S. 

The British sea blockade of 1914 



shook the industrial structure of the 
United States "hardly less than if the 
Staces themselves had been partici- 
pants in the war." Evidence of this 
is the closing of the Stock Exchange, 
the decrease of the exportation of 
goods and the levy of "war taxes." 

Last of all, all real coast countries 
whose cities and economic centers lie 
within range of the British guns are 
unconditional vassals of the ruling sea 
power. If the Briton bids them, the 
Portuguese must risk their lives for a 
matter that does not concern them at 
all. Even Italy is unable to take part 
in any political combination which is 
not acceptable to England. 

To-day in a much larger measure 
than in the age of Napoleon, the "free- 
dom of the seas" must be the political 
goal of all non-Britons. 

But only two states are independent 
enough to profess openly that they 
want to reach that goal of humanity. 
They alone possess the economic 
means to oppose the Briton as equals 
on the sea. These countries are the 
United States and Germany. 

TJ. S. Lulled to Sleep. 

The United States has definitely out- 
stripped the British mother country 
because of the enormous natural re- 
sources and vast geographical extent, 
a gigantic production of raw ma- 
terials and the population twice that 
of England. To-day the United States 
is the world's largest producer of gold 
and silver, mineral oil, cotton, steel 
and coal. Possessed of the most effi- 
ciert industrial machinery, they could, 
if they wished, easily match or sur- 
pass British sea-power. But the sen- 
timent of the United States is against 
"militarism" and "navalism." The 
United States is a colonial country 
abounding in strong individuals, but 
with a decentralized government. 

Tlattered and deftly lulled to sleep 
by British influence, public opinion in 
the United States will not wake up 
until the "yellow New England" of 
the orient, nurtured and deflected from 
Australia by England herself, knocks 
at the gates of the new world. Not a 
patient and meek China, but a warlike 
and conquest-bound Japan will be the 
aggressor when that day comes. Then 
America will be forced to fight under 
unfavorable conditions. In the mean- 
time, England's suicidal policy has 
sacrificed the foremost advance-post 
of the white race and culture, German 
Tsingtau. 

Hereby Britain has laid the north 
of China open to attack, while Japan, 
with a cold logic, has assailed Ger- 
many, the strongest white power in 
the orient, has encircled the Philip- 
pines, reaches out for island bases and 
sea control of the Pacific and bids fair 
to emerge from the war as the only 
sure "winner." 



The Different German Mind. 

Thus the work of the liberation of 
mankind is left to Germany and to 
Germany alone. On November 11, 1870, 
Carlyle wrote to the London "Times": 
"Patient, pious and plodding Germany 
has coalesced into a nation, and has 
taken over the hegemony of the Eu- 
ropean continent. That seems to me 
the most hopeful international fact 
which has happened in my lifetime." 

Germany, the late-comer! While the 
Briton was conquering the world, Ger- 
many has been pushed out since the 
thirty-years' war to the outer line of 
the world's affairs. The customary 
ballast of ships that were returning 
from Germany was sand — the "prod- 
uce of Germany" (le produit de l'Alle- 
magne), as the French sarcastically 
put it. 

The Hansa merchants were like so 
many roosters that picked a few 
grains in the stable of a noble steed 
and were kicked out when they be- 
came a nuisance. But in that quies- 
cent life old Germany gathered a new 
youth — that mysterious strength which 
Carlyle foreshadows in depicting Fred- 
ericK "William I. and his surroundinga 
Then, toward the end of the eigh- 
teenth century, under the protection 
of Prussian neutrality in the revolu- 
tionary wars, that classical age arose 
when Germany was crowned with the 
wreath of intellectual achievement. 
Kant is the mighty figure that marks 
the boundary. How much philosoph- 
ical thought is pre-Kantean even to- 
day and even with us. Oswald in 
Germany and English "pragmatism" 
are cases in point. 

Growth of German Industry and 
Trade. 

As long as the Germans were con- 
tent to live in the clouds the Briton 
ceded to them the legion of intellec- 
tual empire, "the cuckoo house" and 
fools' paradise of philosophic specula- 
tion. He feared neither Fichte's virile 
"Talks to the German Nation," nor 
Hegel's world-embracing system of 
thought. But wrongly so, because that 
culture which seemed so remote from 
the world was in reality intently prac- 
tical. The German culture was a new 
spring of inexhaustible strength which 
was to inspire the German idealist to 
a reshaping of the visible world. 

With the alliance between historic 
Prussia and the "ideal nation" — "th«' 
German nation"— as Fichte had visu- 
alized it— a great power arose in 
Europe on a thorough national foun- 
dation. This new German empire, in 
the opinion of Bismarck, its founder, 
appeared to be "satiated in Europe," 
so lacking in tendencies of expansion 
that Great Britain ceded to it the 
rock island of Heligoland in 1892 with- 
out a shadow of misgiving. But the 
finger of economic necessities — a 
yearly increase of 800,000 in population 



on a small area — pointed beyond 
Europe. 

By the merger of the historic Prus- 
sian customs union, principally with 
tfce West-German ideas of Fr. List, 
Germany raised herself to the posi- 
tion of an economic world power, 
which by the restriction imposed upon 
a smaller Germany prepared the way 
for a greater Germany. List's final 
goal was also a political one; wealth 
was but the means, the end was the 
liberation of humanity from the 
mountain of British pressure. To this 
end List accepted Napoleon's conti- 
nental system as well as "Fichte'a 
national idea." 

Germany Overtakes England. 

"But do you," he appealed to his 
countrymen, "who are struggling to> 
prevent tne restoration of Gallic su- 
premacy, find it more endurable and 
honorable to yield your rivers and 
harbors, your shores and your seas, 
to the sway of the British from now 
on." 

Step by step Germany caught up 
with the British model economic 
state, and overtook Britain first in 
iron and steel production, and then 
in chemical and electrical industries. 
Germany now became tne seat of 
modern high finance; her aggrega- 
tions of capital, accompanied by an 
even distribution of national wealth, 
outgrew all British proportions and 
began to approach American dimen- 
sions; with this difference that the 
German system is more systematic 
and more closely co-ordinated with 
the state than the somewhat acci- 
dental, and still half colonial, capital- 
ism of the United States. 

Just as Karl Marx once studied in 
England, foreigners now came to 
Germany to study the latest tenden- 
cies of modern economic develop- 
ment. The Briton's philosophy of 
competition impresses them as small 
in its scope and antiquated in its 
method, 

A fabulous transformation! About 
the middle of the nineteenth century 
Disraeli in his "Endymion" depicted 
the pitiful plight of the German diplo- 
mat, who, in leaving the metropolis 
of the world (London), exiles himself 
from the circle of brilliant women 
and world ruling statesmen, to return 
to banishment in his native land. 

Germany, in the view of Disraeli, 
is the product of peace conferences 
and protocols. It plays at being a 
great power. Its people are poor in 
everything but forests. And to-day? 
Germany, like King Midas, touches 
raw materials of seemingly insignifi- 
cant value and turns them into ingots 
of gold. 

It would have seemed like madness 
to our forefathers if any one had 
prophesied that Germany would 
tower to Great Britain's heights as 
an industrial state. And yet our en- 
tire military and economic power of 
resistance is based upon this funda- 
mental fact. 



8 



Broad German Industrialism. 

To this new German industry, which 
exports goods instead of men, we are 
particularly indebted for the millions 
in our army. In comparison with the 
one-sided export industrialism of 
England, the new German economic 
system rests firmly upon a propor- 
tionately broader agricultural basis 
than that ol England. Great Britain's 
small and still dwindling agricultural 
population of 5,000,000 contrasts strik- 
ingly with Germany's farming popu- 
lation of 18,000,000, which could be 
increased still further by a policy of 
settlement and internal colonization, 
and in addition to the brawny farm- 
ers the millions of men who have been 
trained to industrial occupations, 
such as metal workers and machin- 
ists, furnish the very best material 
for the army and the navy. 

Of the many industrial establish- 
ments of the empire, one concern 
alone, the A. E. G. Electrical Com- 
pany, sent 14,000 men into the field in 
the present war. No less than 800,000 
members of trades unions are serv- 
ing with the colors. "What power of 
solidarity and strength of discipline 
are represented by these intelligent 
workers. 

Commercial Rivalry with England. 

The new German activity impinged 
with painful effect upon some of the 
old and firmly established British in- 
dustries. Witness the single example 
of coal tar dyes, which completely 
superseded the British dyestuff in- 
dustry, especially indigo, which Great 
Britain previously produced from 
vegetable sources in India for the 
supply of the entire world. All this 
became the more acutely felt when 
German economic life, turning like 
that of England toward the seas, 
reached out mightily for the oceans of 
the world. 



Our kaiser's word that Germany's 
future lies on the sea is more than 
true ; for our present is on the water. 
In all zones German wares, ships, 
banks and enterprises of all sorts 
came into contact with those of Eng- 
land. But, more important still, the 
challenge to British industrial do- 
minion seemed to bring into question 
also the political supremacy of 
Britain. 

Battleships are machines, the most 
expensive of all machines, and a na- 
tion can support them independently 
of any long coastline in the degree in 
which it succeeds in bringing the 
capitalistic center of the world to its 
own territory. The Englishman began 
to fear that in peaceable industrial 
development the scepter of sea do- 
minion would slip from his hands 
through the shifting of the balance 
of economic power. 

From this source came the ominous 
clouds which darkened our political 
sky for so many years. The question 
was forced upon us, would not the 
Briton attempt at the eleventh hour 
to destroy by political means the rival 
who had outstripped him In the eco- 
nomic race? Didn't all the traditions 
of British history point to such a 
probability? Would Great Britain's 
supremacy, built up by war, be main- 
tained by any other means than war? 

Influential writers, and Mr. Garvin 
with especial brilliance, made it their 
life's work to impress upon their 
countrymen this doctrine: "What the 
Spain of Phillip II., the France of 
Louis XIV. and Napoleon, once were 
to England, Germany is to-day— the 
enemy. To-morrow an invincible Ger- 
many will cast its shadow over Europe. 
To-day we must see to it that the 
lesser Germany is crushed. If Ger- 
many were annihilated to-day every 
Englishman would be richer to-mor- 
row." 



Edward the VII.'s Plan of 

Throttling German Development 



Edward VII. made it the main pur- 
pose of British politics to meet this 
"German menace." Through him was 
established the alliance with Japan, 
which barred Russia's way in the far 
East. Through his activities was es- 
tablished the alliance with France, 
which instilled new life into the dying- 
idea of "revanche" for Alsace-Lor- 
xaine. 

It was he who brought about a truce 
with Russia which, through England'? 
enormous sacrifices in the middle East, 
deflected Russia's ambition back to 
the near East and made Constanti- 
nople the center of the world's poli- 
tics. To all this was added the con- 
centration of the British navy in the 
channel and the titanic increase in the 



budget of the naval establishment 
which could be aimed only at Ger- 
many. 

England spent almost twice as much 
for armaments as Germany, and yet 
it is Germany who is accused of "mil- 
itarism." These preparations indi- 
cated a complete reversal of British 
policies, which previously for many 
generations have been directed againsl 
Russia and France and were aimed 
al the conservation of Turkey. 

If Germany should offer resistance 
to the plan for her suppression, she 
would be deprived of her fleet, her 
colonies, her foreign commerce, of Al- 
sace-Lorraine and East and West 
Prussia, and was to be reduced to the 
position of a petty state. In a similai 



"way a strong Turkey would consti- 
tute a menace to the continued Brit- 
ish possession of Egypt and would of- 
fer the possibility of an interruption 
in the British railroad line from the 
Cape to Cairo and thence to India. 

Edward VII.'s Harvest of Skulls. 

Hence arose England's opposition t« 
the Bagdad Railway, which might well 
have become the backbone of young 
Turkey, and finally the plan to. parti- 
tion Turkey between England ano 
Russia. In the furtherance of these 
aims Edward VII. traveled over all 
Europe; "Roi-vivieur" he was, and 1 
not being burdened by puritanical 
traditions, he planted those seeds 
which to-day have cropped up in the 
harvest of skulls. Although "only" a 
parliamentary king, he was the most 
powerful sovereign in the history of 
his nation and also one of the most 
calamitous. 

Knowing Germany thoroughly, Ed 
ward VII. might possibly have been 
content with a mere diplomatic iso- 
lation, avoiding the issue of war, but 
his heirs and executors — Grey, with 
his insular short-sightedness; Winston 
Churchill, with his unbounded personal 
vanity — were less wise. 

But this trend of diplomacy aimed 
at the elimination of the "German 
menace" by a coalition of all powers 
for the crushing of Germany, evoked 
some opposition in England. British 
patriots with a keen sense of perspec- 
tive readily understood that, taken 
all in all, the economic growth of the 
new Germany would enhance rather 
than reduce England's wealth. 

In 1912 Germany became the largest 
buyer of British wares, and even pur- 
chased more from England than the 
lrdian empire. Germany still had a 
balance of trade in her favor in her 
commerce with the British Isles alone, 
but she bought much more from the 
British foreign possessions than she 
sold to them. By purchasing Indian 
and Australian raw products the Ger- 
man industrial state supplemented 
British credit relations. 

India paid the enormous sum of her 
taxes and pensions due in England 
with her acceptances against Ger- 
many, and this kept up the equilibrium 
of the Indian budget and the parity 
of Indian currency (the gold stand- 
ard of the rupee). The idea which 
David Hume once expressed seemed 
to be gaining ground. It was ex- 
pressed in these words: "I venture to 
say openly, not only as a man but also 
as a British subject, that I wish for 
the increase and growth of commerce 
in Germany, Spain, Italy and even in 
France." To-day he would say, "in 
l* ranee and even in Germany." 

The Purpose of the German Navy. 
Every right-thinking Briton, ap- 
preciating the function of his own 



navy as a defense of his commerce, 
was compelled to admit the purely de- 
fensive purpose of the German navy. 
The Briton, least of all, could question 
the principle which I expressed years 
ago, when I sought to explain Ger- 
man naval construction: "It is not 
compatible with the dignity of a na- 
tion which aspires to be a carrier of 
civilization to entrust its existence to 
thf. sufferance of a neighbor, who to- 
day might be well disposed and to- 
morrow hostile." 

The fact that the German fleet was 
purely for purposes of defense was 
made still clearer when von Tirpitz, 
the German minister of marine, pro- 
posed to fix the proportion between 
English and German navies at the 
i atio of 16 to 10. By formulating this 
offer, which constituted a recognition 
of more moderate supremacy for Great 
Britain's fleet, Germany became one 
of the principal factors in the world's 
peace movement, for all discussions of 
disarmament are foolish talk, unless 
they are reduced to tangible facts. 

Finally, in the summer of 1914, just 
before the outbreak of the war, an 
understanding about colonies satisfac- 
tory to both sides seemed to have 
been reached. A comprehensive Anglo- 
German agreement was all but ac- 
complished. This agreement, with the 
adherence of the United States, would 
have ordered and pacified the world 
under Anglo-Saxon auspices. 

Could there be a more promising 
conception than an alliance of the 
three Germanic world powers on a 
basis of equal rights? This alliance 
would have curbed Russian despot- 
ism, as G. Drage, one of the few Eng- 
lishmen who know Russia, demanded 
several years ago in his "Cyril." This 
alliance would have kept Japan's am- 
bitions within reasonable bounds and 
would have secured the rights of the 
white race. With such a purpose in 
mind, Wilhelm II., once one of the 
best friends of England, said: "It may 
be that some day England will be glad 
thai Germany has a fleet, when both 
lands take a stand together on the 
same side and unite their voices for 
a common cause." 

Through a thick and dense jungle 
of suspicion and prejudice the kaiser 
attempted to open a way for this 
chought — and with him not a few of 
the best Germans and Englishmen. 

Russia's Aid. 

But just because this agreement was 
so near, and because Constantinople 
would thereby forever be out of Rus- 
sia's reach, the delicate political ma- 
chinery contrived by Edward VII. was 
put into motion by the wanton hands 
of Russian grand dukes. A year later 
their opportunity might have vanished. 
But the immediate heirs of Edward 
VII. were still in command. 

In Russia the war party overbore 



10 



all opposition because it had received 
assurances of British support, as the 
Belgian minister in St. Petersburg re- 
ported to his government on the 30th 
of July, 1914. These assurances of 
England's aid were given without the 
previous knowledge of the British Par- 
liament, against the wishes of leading 
English statesmen (Morley, Burns and 
Trevelyan) and also against the pacific 
inventions of the British labor unions 
(it. Macdonald). 

Thus, upon the foundations of the 
British parliamentary system so 
often held up as a model, two or three 
men, undemocratically bound up Eng- 
land's fate with the fate of Russian 
despotism and let loose the most terri- 
ble war of all times. Democratic in 
the truest sense, on the other hand, 
was the unanimity with which the 
German nation accepted the war for 
its national existence which had been 
forced upon it. 

Those of us who were present at 
the session of the German Reichstag 
on August 4 could not but feel that 
we were carried by the storm of a 
people's will and by the overwhelm- 
ing flood of a nation acting with a 
single mind. 

Belgium Long Unneutral. 

It is difficult to understand how, 
with these historic facts in mind, it 
is possible for any one still to ignore 
all else and cent-r the discussion upon 
Belgian neutrality. The entry of Ger- 
man troops into a Belgium which had 
long ceased to be neutral followed 
England's pledge to Russia and 
France that she would undertake the 
protection of the northern coast of 
France in case of war with Germany, 
and after French soldiers were al- 
ready on Belgian soil, as we have 
been informed by French prisoners of 
war. 

The question might well be raised: 
Did England declare war on Japan, 
when Japan, in order to conquer 
Tsmg-tau, violated China's neutrality 
in exactly the same way? I mention 
these matters only for the sake of 
the neutrals who read this paper. 

Besides this, we have been on the 
verge of a catastrophe frequently in 
the past few years long before the 
pretext of a fight for Belgium was 
devised, in my last campaign speech, 
in order to make the heavy burden of 
our last army bill more intelligible to 
my constituents, I explained in May, 
1913, the European situation to them 
in these words: 

Only Needed a Spark. 

"No matter how one regards our 
present relations with Russia, thus 
much must be said: a spark will ex- 
plode the powder magazine of Europe. 
In diplomatic circles one is told that 
the czar has said that his dearest 
wish is for peace, but that fate has 
decreed that his wishes are seldom 
carried out. In France Chauvinistic 
literature has bloomed which says, 



not only 'We want Alsace-Lorraine,' 
but 'We have the power to get it.' 

'And as for England, is its govern- 
ment strong enough to keep the 
British nation in check in the event 
of a Franco-German war? Italy can- 
not move unless England is willing. 
Turkey, in the judgment of those who 
know her best, needs nothing so much 
as years of peace, during which 
Europeans shall not intrude upon her 
affairs. These meddling Europeans 
are the Russians as well as the Eng- 
lish, so that Germany is alone the 
protecting power of Asiatic Turkey." 
(Published in "Hilfe," Nos. 21 and 22. 
May, 1913). 

Germany's Goal. 

And now that the war has broken 
out, we owe ourselves and the world 
an answer to the question, "What is 
Germany fighting for?" Germany 
pronounces as inimical to the highest 
civilization any state of affairs where- 
in it is possible for one power to 
dominate the business of the world so 
completely that it can suspend the 
economic life of the world and menace 
the very existence of all other na- 
tions, striking them to the heart by 
carrying unemployment and want 
into the remotest hut. 

Germany is fighting for the freedom 
of the seas. She is fighting for all na- 
tions — even for France. Germany does 
not aspire to command of the seas — 
she has not the necessary strength 
for that — but she does wish to bring 
about a condition of maratime equilib- 
rium among the several sea powers, 
and does demand an honorable place 
among them. 

Such an equilibrium, establishing 
free seas, under the joint control of a 
group of powers, is the only condition 
that will insure the security of Ger- 
many's children and her future, and 
the only condition on which she can 
accept the thought of disarmament. 

Germany declares, further, that it is 
inimical to civilization for one nation 
to be in a position to pre-empt the 
world's sources of raw materials in 
colonial territory and apportion them 
among her favorites, curtailing the 
supplies of nations upon whose 
growth she might frown. 

A colonial policy is no luxury, it is 
an absolute necessity for the industry 
and credit of the old European in- 
dustrial and creditor states with a 
limited area. Germany as an indus- 
trial and financial state requires a 
sufficiently broad colonial territory 
not too remote geographically. 

The Vital Needs of a People. 

The Belgian Congo, which the Bel- 
gians themselves have been unable to 
develop, offers just such an oppor- 
tunity for expansion, which would not 
seriously disturb French or British 
colonial interests. 

Aims like these are not the ideas 
of a single man or of a erroup of men, 
but are vital needs of the entire Ger- 
man people It is the German working 



11 



class that is more interested in free 
world commerce, the importation of 
foodstuffs, the exportation of manu- 
factured goods, and the possession of 
colonial sources of raw material than 
any other class of people in the em- 
pire. 

To summarize: Germany is fight- 
ing for the equality of her right to the 
sea-ways and thereby for the freedom 
of humanity. In connection with this 
it must be mentioned that Germany 
regards the English monopoly of in- 
ternational exchange as having been 
outlived. Until now a draft in English 
pound sterling has been considered 



the most secure and the most market- 
able of all values. It meant gold plus 
interest. 

But to-day those drafts on London 
which bear a single German signature 
are nothing more than bits of paper. 
This experience furnishes the best 
ground for the contention that the 
dollar and the mark must stand equal 
to, if not above, the English pound as 
international standards. Once again 
Neptune, the ancient god of the seas, 
is tugging at his chains. Once again 
the thought is pulsing in the hearts 
of the nations— "Freedom of the 
seas!" 



Reasons Why England Finds 

It Hard to Defeat Germany 



The suicidal policy of the Briton has 
impelled us to Napoleonic tasks. But 
when the Briton imagines he is pre- 
paring for us a fate similar to that of 
Napoleon, he bases his calculations 
upon two grave misconceptions. 

Before Great Britain had crowded 
France out politically, she had, in the 
course of the eighteenth century, dis- 
tanced her French rival commercially. 
In 1800 England was in possession of 
the first factories and was also lead- 
ing the new science of manufacture by 
machinery. 

King Steam had placed the crown of 
world dominion upon the brow of 
Britannia, which as Macaulay aptly 
remarked, became the economic wea- 
pon that won Britain's political 
victory. In contrast to Britain's prog- 
ress France still clung to her old-fash- 
ioned agricultural traditions. Napo- 
leon's financial system was weak and 
was dependent upon the indemnities 
of conquered peoples; hence it implied 
dominion by force, always an un- 
certain element. The mighty charac- 
ter of the Anglo-Saxon could not be 
shaken by the unrestrained methods 
of the Jacobins or by the tyrannical 
might of a Caesar. England had 
similar advantages over France in the 
intellectual world. 

To-day conditions are different. The 
highly developed finance system of 
Germany will be able to maintain 
even in war its superiority over Eng- 
land's old-fashioned individualistic 
capitalism. Germany was the only 
country which did not require a 
moratorium. German political econ- 
omy, with its wonderful powers of 
adaptation, has organized German 
economic life to meet the requirements 
of a war. 

local Organization the Source of 
German Power. 
The war gave us a powerful impetus 
toward public ownership, so that 
Marx's "theory of a catastrophe" 
seemed to have become true — of 
course, in a different way from that 
which its author had imagined. Short- 



ly before the war the Imperial Bank 
established its influence over the pri- 
vate banking world, under the bril- 
liant leadership of Havenstein. The 
process of unification which was given 
to the structure of German credit, by 
this international management, en- 
abled it to firmly brace itself against 
the war. 

Confidence in the central bank, and 
beyond that in the German state, was 
never shaken for a moment. This 
confidence drew deposits and savings 
into banks and savings institutions. 
Hoarded gold flowed into the Imperial 
Bank. At New Year's, 1915, the gold 
reserve for notes was 46.8 per cent., 
and the discount rate of the Imperial 
Bank, which since the beginning of 
the war has never exceeded 6 per 
cent., stood at 5 per cent. 

Considering the tremendous demand 
for money, there was no excess of cir- 
culation outstanding. The war loan 
of 4,500,000,000 marks was raised by 
only a very slight increase in circula- 
tive medium in the small percentage 
of cases where stocks and bonds were 
exchanged for bank loan certificates. 

The successes of this financial mobi- 
lization exceeded the most daring ex- 
pectations, and the achievements of 
"Gold Marshal" Havenstein were 
rightly estimated as standing on a 
level with those of Field Marshal Hin- 
denburg. 

War Supplies. 

German industry was re-shaped to 
supply the army.and at the beginning 
of 1915 a "war boom" developed which 
absorbed all available labor. In place 
of unemployment there' was an actual 
lack of skilled workmen. In this con- 
nection mention should be made of the 
"War Bureaus of German Industry" — 
"The War Woollen Company," "The 
War Metal Company," "The War 
Tobacco Concern" and other special 
organizations toward a similar end. 

To this was added an extraordinary 
activity in agriculture., which the 
state guided with a cautious hand— 
"The War Grain Company," the 



12 



"Regulations for the Use of Flour," 
"Restrictions in the Use of Grain for 
the Production of Alcoholic Liquors." 
The functions of city government were 
broadened and extended into new 
fields from the founding of bureaus 
for the adjustment of rents down to 
the establishment of agencies for 
turning vacant plots mto vegetable 
gardens. These municipal activities 
were supplemented by tne voluntary 
co-operation of many private asso- 
ciations. 

Note must also be made of the en- 
terprise of the territorial govern- 
ments, which, following the army in 
its advance, utilized for productive 
purposes the occupied regions. This 
method of warfare, which was forced 
upon us by the British blockade, be- 
came very effective when we had 
conquered such great commercial and 
industrial centers as Antwerp, Lille 
and Lodz. 

Plowing the Devastated Fields. 
Never before in the history of war 
has a conquering nation taken imme- 
diate steps to provide thus for the re- 
sumption of the cultivation of fields 
devastated by war. This was done by 
Germany in a thoroughly organized 
way, with steam plows and the co- 
operation of German soldiers with the 
native peasantry. In that way our 
territory for the support of the opera- 
tions of war was extended. 

Although the machinery creaks a 
bit, and for the time being friction is 
more apparent than the actual bene- 
fits, there has never been a more per- 
fect organization of a free people than 
is evidenced in warring Germany of 
to-day. One of the most singular 
chapters of economic history is being 
written for the benefit of posterity. 
The socialization of the German state 
has been so rapid and complete that it 
will take science years to record what 
has been achieved. We can state also 
that Germany has never been econom- 
ically so strong and so firmly knit to- 
gether as now, after nearly a year of 
war. 

New Inventions. 

Similar advancement is apparent in 
the technical field. Germany, like the 
sleeping beauty, has been aroused out 
of her century long sleep by the elec- 
tric spark which touches the black- 
ness of anthracite to bring forth the 
magic colors of aniline dyes. War 



stimulated progress. Saltpetre was 
literally extracted from the air. 

The great revolution in means of 
transportation since the days of Napo- 
leon has benefited Germany more than 
any other nation, as Friedrich List 
predicted. The Prussian railway sys- 
tem is not only the largest single en- 
terprise in the world, but it is the 
most efficient mechanism ever 
created, typifying German unity and 
striking power. The railway has 
welded together nations which other- 
wise could hardly come into touch, 
such, for example, as Germany and 
Turkey. 

With the help of her allies and of 
such neutrals as are contiguous by 
land, and with her control of the Baltic 
sea, and, through Turkey, of the Black 
sea, Germany commands an economic 
territory which could support itself 
for years in case of necessity. And 
these changes have been effected dur- 
ing a period when the British indus- 
trial state has been losing its mobility! 
England's Individualism a Limita- 
tion to Progress. 

In a moral and intellectual sense 
also England has been living the life 
of a retired capitalist, the richest capi- 
talist of the world. England's tre- 
menous heritage still towers over her 
head as a globe encompassing dome, 
but the foundation arches of this 
heaven-storming structure are crack- 
ing. The religious life of the Anglo- 
Saxon has aged into formalism, and, 
having lost the power of adapting 
itself to scientific progress, is de- 
generating into little more than hy- 
pocrisy. 

"No Englishman," said Carlyle, "any 
longer dares to pursue Truth. For 200 
years he has been swathed in lies of 
every sort." And even that phenome- 
non of disintegration called "Enlight- 
enment," which England never suc- 
ceeded in outgrowing, offers no sub- 
stitute for the truths that slipped from 
her as her religion withered into for- 
malism; no mechanical formula will 
solve the riddle of the universe; no 
utilitarian calculation of happiness 
will satisfy the anxious longings of 

Herein lies England's internal dan- 
ger; here gapes the abyss which Car- 
lyle and Emerson sought to bridge 
with building stones of German philos- 
ophy. 



Social Co-ordination and Duty 

to Society New German Concept 



And, in fact, it was upon German 
soil that the basic lines of that uni- 
versal temple were thought out which 
was to furnish a new home for the 
searching human spirit. German 
idealism outstripped the British mind 
since It fused puritanism and enlight- 
enment to a higher unity. The rigid 
greatness of puritanism lived on in 
old Prussia, to which it had always 



been bound by threads of spiritual 
history. But Kant placed this same 
old Prussia upon the judgment seat 
of reason when he vanquished the 
greatest skeptic of all times, David 
Hume, the final product of British 
thought. 

Amidst the doubts of the intellect 
and the perplexities of the soul the 
"mandate of duty" becomes the gran- 



13 



te block upon which man can rise to 
'freedom" and bring "order" into his 
affairs — "order" into conflict between 
knowledge and desire o£ the man who 
understands and acts. Looking up 
from that rock man inevitably attains 
to faith in God and to confidence in 
an all-embracing plan of salvation, 
even when in places the continuity of 
the ordained purpose remains veiled 
in darkness. 

Germany's Collective Force. 

But the synthesis achieved by Ger- 
man thought was even richer than 
this. When old Prussia allied itself 
with western Germany, with its 
warmer blood and its quicker percep- 
tions of art, duty and individual lib- 
erty were merged in the "idea of the 
whole" — from Kant to Hegel! 

The discipline of the individual as a 
part of the social whole is, for the 
German, no servitude, as the Briton is 
wont to imagine, but a higher step to- 
ward freedom. For the individual in 
that way confers the place of tran- 
scendent value upon society. 
"Law seems to bind with rigid fetters 
Only the mind of the slave who spurns 
it." 
The collective force of Germany, 
which interlocks the free individual 
with the social whole, is stronger than 
the forceful individuals whom old 
England produced. This tendency is 
observable in the German army, in 
German state enterprises and in the 
kartel organization of German capital. 
At his best the Briton succeeded in 
subjecting the world to British do- 
minion through strong personalities 
for the glory of a world-strange God. 
Subordination to the Social Group 
Not Slavery, but a Higher Freedom. 
The German, on the other hand, does 
his best in creating a highly organized 
community for the purpose of further- 
ing in society the historic development 
of eternal values. Thus the idea of 
the kingdom of God (Civitas Dei) and 
its visible manifestation in the Chris- 
tian church, continue to produce 
beneficent results. Corresponding to 
this difference in philosophic outlook 
between the two races, there is a dif- 
ference in political aims. The formal 
freedom of the Briton the German re- 
gards only as the first step beyond 
which he must go by bringing about a 
rational organization of the state for 
material justice, and in this respect 
the Prussian state socialist and the 
social democrat are at one. 

The German strives for rational or- 
der, where the British ideal of com- 
petition places the blind forces of 
chance upon an arbitary throne. No 
one knew this better than an English- 
man himself— Carlyle— who thought 
that Germany when she took the lead 
in Europe had secured several hun- 
dred years more for the attempt to 
build out of the germs then in exist- 
ence a new social order. 

The Federation of Nations. 

Beyond these national aims, the 



German does not strive for world do- 
minion, but for a rational organiza- 
tion of the world on the basis of vol- 
untary co-operation. Kant's "Eternal 
Peace" is to him an ideal always to 
be striven for, even though unattain- 
able. But between this indefinite re- 
mote aim — "One flock and one shep- 
herd!" and the to-day, full of national 
antagonisms, the German believes 
that he can realize certain intermedi- 
ate steps through a welding for a fed- 
eral union of nations akin in interests 
and civilization. 

That such a political organization 
can be expected Germany has proved 
by its kartels, wherein stronger and 
weaker units exist with advantage to 
all. Switzerland, essentially German 
in character, constitutes such a fed- 
eration, comprising three of the prin- 
cipal European nationalities. Similar- 
ly Austria-Hugary should be such a 
federation, assuring equal rights to 
Germans, Magyars, Roumanians, west 
and southern Slavs. 

A commercial and political union 
of the two central European powers 
lay in the direction of Bismarck's 
thoughts and is to-day more than 
ever felt as a need consequent upon 
the present brotherhood in arms. By 
leaning upon such a central European 
nucleus the Germanic states of the 
north and Slavic states of the south- 
east would obtain the advantages of 
state organization on a large scale 
without losing their independence. 

A Confederacy of Nations. 

But the German idea of a federation 
of nations goes still further. It is no 
Utopia; no idler's day dreams to safe- 
guard the peace of the western 
European continent by a league of its 
principal powers. Such a peaceful 
confederacy among Germany, Aus- 
tria-Hungary, France and Italy 
would consolidate and unite nations 
that have vital interests in common. 
This would furnish a balance to Eng- 
land's sea monopoly and world- 
power which for centuries has been 
the source of Europe's strife. De- 
mands for such a federation will 
make themselves felt after the mad- 
ness of the present war. 

The war with France was entirely 
avoidable, for Germany demanded 
from France nothing but her neu- 
trality. And why did France go to 
war? The French themselves, in the 
territory now occupied by us, have 
answered again and again: "Nobody 
knows why!" The war with England 
was not quite so groundless, but it, 
too, could have been avoided because 
it was ir. England's ultimate interest 
to accept the position of "first among 
equals" (Primus inter pares). But 
war with Russia was inevitable at 
some time or other. 

Germany might have waged it, with 
western Europe neutral, for the lib- 
eration of the Russian people itself, 
for the independence of the subju- 
gated nationalities and for the se- 
curity of neighboring people menaced 
by "Holy Russia." There may have 



14 



been a time when tyranny and serf- 
dom were essential to the education 
of mankind. But to-day the time has 
come for the organization, instead, of 
free units, each protected by the 
whole — a German conception of civi- 
lization. 

The ideal of organization, the 
thought of a tremendously valuable 
whole, uniting its free members for 



effective work, labors in the subcon- 
sciousness of millions of Germans; 
labors even where it does not come to 
the light of philosophic discussion. 
The very fact that our opponents call 
us "barbarians" proves that these ulti- 
mate sources of strength are closed 
to them and that they cannot gauge 
our power and invincibility, but only 
imitate externals. 



SUMMARY 



The human infant, through a sea of 
perplexing doubts, was safely carried 
to the impregnable rock of eternal 
truth by such giants as Kant, Fichte 
and Hegel. The ideas created by 
Goethe, Schiller and Beethoven, those 
masters of words and harmonies, are 
spirits storming to be born into the 
flesh and blood of the visible world 
of to-day. Stein, Scharnhorst and 
Gneisenau — those reformers that 
wedded the Prussian state to the 
"German ideal" — thereby preserved 
both. William I., that unique charac- 
ter who found genius and tolerated it, 
who sustained the Bismarcks and the 
Von Moltkes, while they raised the 
torn and tattered Fatherland to the 
rank of a European power, the 
strength of which now decides world 
questions. 

All these, the heroes of our past, are 
our brothers-in-arms to-day. Over the 
heads of our gray-clad soldiers those 
silent heroes of a bygone age have 
already won their victory for the Ger- 
man spirit. Our material battle is a 
consequence of this invisible struggle 
begun so long ago. In the ancient 
truth that right always conquers rests 
our unshakable conviction in our final 
victory. Because of these facts this 
Germany cannot go under now, nor 
can the fate of Hindustan be appor- 
tioned to it. For the world-spirit 
speaks to-day through Germany. 

A Rock-Strewn Path. 

The sun of Germany is mounting to 
its meridian behind black and heavy 
clouds, amid the thundering roar of 
cannon and the deceptive shrieking of 
venal bats of the dawn in allied and 
neutral lands. Only when Germany 
has reached her zenith, when she has 
consciously asserted herself politically 
in the fullness of her power, will the 
German soul reveal its finest and best 
in art. Warriors of to-day, we are 
laboring for that hour of leisure. 

But our pathway is rock-strewn. 
Victory is not so easy, as it would 
have been if Russia and France had 
been our only foes. The wild elation 
of victory would have been worse for 
Germany than a defeat. We thank 
divine Providence that, through Brit- 
ain, has been imposed on us this in- 
definitely severe trial. 

This battle at such great odds re- 
calls to posterity the drama of Mara- 
thon. But more important than ex- 
ternal glory is the internal chastening 
which war has brought, clarifying the 
German character of its dross, it has 



burned out of our body politic much 
that was withered — false valuations of 
all sorts. This trial has led every one 
of us, from the highest to the lowest, 
to turn to self-examination; it has 
made \is critical of ourselves, and self- 
control brings reserves of strength. 
We have turned homeward to those 
sources of eternal strength from which 
all human life flows, veiled in uncon- 
scious darkness in order to return to 
our life's work in conscious liberty. 

Germany Grows Spiritually. 

This war has brought home to us 
better than all pulpit sermons the 
fleeting nature of all worldly things. 
Perhaps we have not yet passed 
through the gravest phases of our 
trials. But this deepening and clarify- 
ing of our soul will surely be a bless- 
ing. From our spiritual depths this 
gigantic experience will bring about a 
complete renewal of our life of body, 
mind., soul and state. Rebirth, re- 
generation — that is the watchword of 
this age of war! 

To return to where we started. The 
English government by stiffening the 
resistance of unhappy Belgium com- 
pelled us to march to Antwerp and the 
channel — old German imperial soil, old 
Hapsburg lands until the revolution- 
ary wars in 1794! 

So we again approach Holland in 
taking up her battle for free seas. We 
have come to be her only neighbor for 
the time. By championing the right 
of all nationalities to determine their 
own destinies we have resumed the 
work which the old Dutch sea heroes 
left unfinished— the battle against the 
unmasked despotism, formerly of 
Spain and to-day of Russia, the grim 
fight against the despotism of Eng- 
land and her vassals, so much more 
dangerous because hidden in the guijje 
of sea-control. 

Even though this war for free access 
to the sea, imposed upon us by destiny, 
be as severe as that of the Nether- 
lands, it matters not. With confidence 
we shall recall the prayer of the great 
Duke of Orange, of whom it is said 
that he was "calm amid the wildest 
waves," and whose epitaph was: 

"Here rests who never knew repose 

Until he overcame his foes!" 

We remember the Dutch prayer of 
thanks with which our kaiser, who is 
both a Hohenzollern and a descendant 
of the Orange champion of open sea- 
ways, marched into battle with us: 
"O Lord, make us free!" 



15 



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